Law Firm of the Day: Bradley Arant Boult Cummings
Dear sirs. We are a legal blog based in the New York City. One of our Nigerian investors has mysteriously passed away and left us a lot of money. We are trying to increase the number of advertisers on our site, and have a unique proposal for you. We will send you the money and then we would like you buy adds on our site. You can keep some of the money for your trouble. We only want to do this deal with the “Guest” commenter. If you are “Guest,” please send us your bank details to tips@abovethelaw.com and we will send you a check.
We doubt that would work on you, oh savvy ATL readers, but it might work on Bradley Arant Boult Cummings (a firm that came out of Southern merger mania). The firm was recently taken in an e-mail scam and lost $400,000. From the ABA Journal:
The Nashville Post (sub. req.) reported yesterday that the law firm wired more than $400,000 to the foreign bank account of a scammer posing as a client. Lawyers at the firm believed the funds were covered by a check it had deposited—a check that turned out to be phony.The law firm says it quickly reported the scam to the FBI, leading to the arrest of suspects and the freezing of the funds. “It was an elaborate criminal plan on many levels,” Bradley Arant managing partner John Grenier said in a statement released to the ABA Journal. The firm quickly reported the crime, leading to “the apprehension of the suspects in this scheme and the freezing of the funds.”
How did the firm get taken by the elaborate criminal plan? After the jump.
The ABA Journal says:
A target law firm gets a referral from someone posing as an out-of-state lawyer to enforce a simple contract dispute or to collect a debt from a local corporation. The law firm agrees to represent the “client,” a foreign corporation.The law firm sends a demand letter, the debtor forwards a check, and the law firm deposits the check in its trust account. It then wires the money to the bank account of the foreign client, after keeping part of the sum for fees and costs.
“Things fall apart,” the TBA says, “when the bank on which the check is drawn notifies everyone that the check is a counterfeit fraud—by which time it is too late to stop the wire transfer, and the law firm’s client trust account is now out the proceeds.”
No word on whether the foreign corporation to which Bradley Arant sent funds was based in Nigeria.
Bradley Arant Reportedly Scammed Out of More Than $400K [ABA Journal]
TBA scam warning comes too late for one major firm [Nashville Post]
Earlier: Law Firm Merger Mania: Mid-Size Mergers in the South and Midwest
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Comments
What's a "frim"? Sounds kinky.
First First First!!!
Not first...but frist!
Dems to raise taxes by $600 BILLION to pay for the destruction that is gov't-run health care:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aqLNecbH0dcg
For those who lack the work necessary to contribute meaningfully to their billable hour requirements: http://www.419eater.com/
A true NYC firm would never fall for a trick like that.
I don't buy that this hick (I can't even bring myself to call it a non-peer firm) outift was scammed. I believe that they have conspired with scam artists in Nigeria to "lose" money so that they can offset their income on their tax business schedules. The money is there somewhere. If I am wrong, then each attorney at this firm that was "scammed" deserves to have their law licensed revoked retroactive to their bar admission date.
"Things fall apart . . . " , eh? Any good chicken and rice recipes out there?
Things fall apart and the center cannot hold.
W.B. Yeats
Undoubtedly a member of their accounting staff neglected to wait until the phoney check cleared before sending out the money. Whomever signed the check should have inquired, but it is not surprising this occurred.
Elie,
I am still waiting on the apology you owe me for using the racial slur "hillbilly." Even if the ad had been racist, which it clearly was not, that did not give you the right to then also use a racial slur.
Sincerely,
Cracka McWhitey
6, a "true" NYC firm? As opposed to a "false one"? Moron.
agree with 10. we won't even forward on $100 until the check clears. holy bookkeeper tickler batman.
Heh, gotta love it, but yeah, what firm forwards on a settlement, especially for that kind of money, without waiting for the first check to clear?
The check did "clear", but in doing so it stole from a legit fund. When the legit fund realized what happened they contacted the bank that cleared the check. Too late at that point.
But thanks for all the retarded comments about how you crack-lawyers would have been astute enough to wait until the check cleared.
They should pay attention to other legal publications. Similar thing reported in January.
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202427594436
16, thanks for the post, I couldn't access the Nashville Post story, but I'm pretty surprised that the firm would fall that sort of thing...then again, who knows?
15 = BABC Hack. Instead of being an apologist for your senior partner who should know better, but was obviously too easily lured by the scent of easy money, maybe you all should be checking the ABA Journal.
This scam has been old news for over a year. So no, we wouldn't get scammed.
http://abajournal.com/news/e_mail_scam_targeting_law_firms_ensnares_a_lawyer_in_atlanta
6--
You're right. A true NY firm would just fall apart due to lost clients, failed management decisions, and poor salary schedules.
I suppose I'm no longer the only thing from Nigeria that makes "Things Fall Apart."
The law allows for a check to provisionally clear, but the bank from which the check is drawn has additional time to verify it. As such, it shows up in the trust account as having cleared, but such clearance is provisional only. When the originating bank discovers the check is actually counterfeit, it can still stop payment.
What's interesting isn't the bookkeeping error (which, as discussed, isn't necessarily an error). What _is_ interesting is that a lawyer at a reasonably well respected regional firm couldn't see through the abysmal grammar in the emails. I get them every day because they just pull addresses from state bar directories; the grammar and word choice screams scam. (e.g. "Dear Esteemed Council [sic]:")
To genius @ 18 -
I don't work for BABC, and I think they're idiots to fall for this scam. I was simply pointing out the stupidity of people on here claiming that their brilliant decision to wait until a check cleared would have avoided this scam. The check had cleared - there was no way to know or suspect it was fraudulent at that point. However, the firm should have recognized the scam for what it was well before this happened.
-15
19,
Uhhhh, I don't believe BABC is actually killing it right now, given their heavy reliance on finance and real estate. In any event, since you are the expert on true NY firms, could a true NY firm get an updated website within 6 1/2 months following an announced merger? It guess that is only slightly more difficult than falling for a well known scam.
20 great find of thumbnail!!!
Finally! A chance to break out the Chinua Achebe shtick. Well done.
So I can blame BABC for all the retarded lawsuit scam spam that hits my email? ("Enforce this Chinese contract!", "My wife got raped by federal agents!") If it didn't work on jackasses like this, scammers wouldn't be trying their stupidity on the rest of us...
Even TTThompson Hine wouldn't fall for this.
You cannot con an honest man; nor an honest law firm.
TTThings Fall Apart: A Sequel.
TTThings Fall Apart: A Sequel. New York Times Notable.
TTThings Fall Apart: A Sequel. New York Times Notable.
20 - You almost singlehandedly restored my faith in the collective intellect and humor of the commenters on this webpage.
Slow clap!
Who is the partner at BoulTTT that got conned?
I initially thought the Nigerian part of this blog was written by Elie. I'm still not convinced that it wasn't
I was presented with one of these scams and it really did look legit -- it did not have all the mispellings and tell tale marks of the common email scams. The used a real out of state lawyers name and set up a website and all with his alleged background that coincided with the guy's actual bar profile. The fatal flaw was that I didn't think the lawyer would be referring out a decent sized collection case. I called the actual guy. Scam foiled. But, really it was pretty darn sophisticated. Lots of collection agencies have been taken on these as well.
35: Did this happen to you before or after the advent of the internet? Seems to me that anyone getting duped with this after the proliferation of information out there regarding this very same scam almost deserves to be taken, as bad as that sounds. As you note, it is the promise of a ridiculously large fee which drives the firm to this end result.
Boring Arrogant is the worst. The only wannabe white shoe lawfirm in B'ham. Total snobs....
Kash, why you have to call out Nigeria? You can't spell Australia, Israel or United Kingdom?
Fifty bucks says Elie wrote the "Dear Sirs." letter at the beginning of this post.
Note to BABC - there is this really neat, cutting edge company out there called "Dun and Bradstreet." You might want to check it out. They perform a "credit check," and verify whether a company is "real."
We use them quite often in between eating your lunch and avoiding embarrassing public scandals.
40 - You're a dummy. D&B COULD tell you if the company was real, but they likely wouldn't be able to tell you if the check was a fake.
Maybe in a better economy, firms wouldn't fall for this scam, but everyone's so desperate for work that no one (at least not this firm) cares to check whether the client is real. So, even if the check "cleared," I have no sympathy.
9, meet 20.
Things Fall Apart = title of a novel by Chinua Achebe about the perils of modernization in Nigeria.
And as much as I hate to agree with PE, these guys are hicks. A co-worker got a similar email (the sender purported to be an officer of a Chinese corporation seeking representation to collect a debt). It took all of 5 minutes on google to figure out the scam.
$400,000 ?!?!?! That could buy a lot of hookers from Craigslist. Whoops..... You mean that is a scam as well?!?!? Where your mugshot is taken by the cops and posted on their website for the world to see???
It would seem odd to me to get a referral for commercial work totally out of the blue. Whenever we look for local counsel or another firm to recommend to a client, we ask around for recommendations. When I call others to refer case, they always want to know who referred me to them. I always want to know the same thing - just to know who to thank usually. It will now definitely raise red flags for me if someone calls randomly.
41 -- You are totally right, 40 is a dummie. I can't tell you how many legitimate companies that have a D&B profile that shows a substantial operating and credit history pay with fake checks. It's gotten so bad, our firm has had to set up a special section in accounting that use to handle all of the legitimate companies paying with fake checks. Caused us quite a tizzy.
Oh, of course there is the occasional scamster that pretends he is from a legitimate company. We have a tool for that too. It's called "directory assistance." We use this "directory assistance" to get a phone number for the real company and the we call them. It's pretty sophisticated stuff.
Can't you people read:
"The law firm says it quickly reported the scam to the FBI, leading to the arrest of suspects and the freezing of the funds."
You are making posts like the crooks got away with it and the money is smoke. They didn't according to the actual post.
47: Does it really matter if the crooks got away or they didn't? The reality is that the fools fell for an obvious and well known scam.
Sincerely,
BoulTTT
48,
Did you really expect any different with the likes of Partner Bubba who was made a partner because his granddaddy owned one of the original firms? Of course they fell for it or all that inbreeding would be for naught.
47